Blank Vendetta
by ElegantButler
Summary: Sequel to Journey Down a Hard Road...
1. Chapter 1

Max Headroom: Blank Vendetta

(Being Part Three of the ACS Trilogy which includes "20 Minutes Into Terror" and "Journey Down a Hard Road")

-Prologue: Introductions All Around-

"Bryce," Jenny called past the wall of boxes that separated the main part of the converted warehouse from the bedroom. "Are you up?"

Jenny fished a box of cereal from the storage locker that she used as a cupboard. She poured some into two bowls and set them on the table.

"Yeah, I'm up," the new Bryce called out sarcastically. "Been up all night. Gotta love having a bedroom in a warehouse right next to a freakin' concert hall! And why do they have to play bloody Mozart? Stupid guy never wrote anything good! If they're gonna keep it up until dawn, how about some nice David Bowie songs?"

Jenny smiled ruefully. Seventeen years ago, she had succeeded in secretly cloning Bryce after his death. She'd kept the deed a secret from everyone except for Bryce II, a construct created by Max Headroom and herself when Bryce had been in danger of brain death. And Max himself, who had discovered the child but agreed to keep Jenny's secret.

Max knew the child would be destroyed if anyone learned about it, and wanted to see Bryce again. So he had kept the secret from Edison's team and made sure that the new Bryce was kept safe from harm.

Other than the sarcasm, there was just one problem.

The new Bryce was a girl.

She was about five-nine with a slender build. Her hair, dyed pink after reading too many episodes of G.I. Joe, was cut in a flame point, again for the same reason. She wore a white leather bolero jacket and a cut-off t-shirt that showed off her midriff along with a pair of shorts and brown cowboy boots.

"Are you ever going to dye your hair back to a normal color?" Jenny asked her. She didn't bother bringing up the tattoo the girl had recently acquired that adorned the skin just above her breasts. A rather large one of a winged heart. It had been the subject of a heated argument between them when the girl had first come home with it.

"No," Bryce shook her head. "If it's good enough for Zarana, it's good enough for me."

"Zarana is a bitch," Jenny pointed out, having read many of the comics along with her daughter as the child had grown up.

"Yeah," Bryce said, smirking dangerously as she grabbed her bowl and took a handful of Zak-Mallows. "So am I."

In another part of the Fringes, Breughal dumped another body into the back of his gray van. Standing up slowly afterward, he rubbed his shoulder. Hoisting corpses wasn't as easy as it had once been. But it still paid well, so he kept at it.

"I feel as stiff as my stock," he muttered.

"Here. Let me," a teenage boy said, walking over to Breughal and massaging his shoulder. "You really ought to let me do that. I'm no weakling."

It was true. The boy, Cadenet, was Breughal's son and the apple of his father's eye. He spent much of his days working out, using the various limbs his father collected from accidents and murder scenes as weights.

Breughal still didn't know what made him keep the child. His mother, Breughal's final Mahler, had died shortly after she had given birth to him. Her almost natural death had made her a fine body for the racks. But for the first time, Breughal could not bring himself to have her dismantled. So he'd taken her to Gladhand Meadows and vowed to work alone from now on, feeling that this was one Mahler who could never be replaced.

Cadenet was built like a swimmer. His body was slender and his muscles well-defined. He wore a black t-shirt, torn at the midriff to show off his six-pack, a leather jacket, and black jeans with combat boots. His hair, which fell in curtains around his face, was ice-white, except for a streak of black that framed the left side.

"Go have your breakfast," Breughal said. "I'll join you in a moment."

"Zak-Tarts or BeefSlims?" Cadenet asked.

"Tarts," Breughal told him. "The Slims are for lunch. And finish the strawberry. They're gonna go off in a day or two."

Cadenet opened a package of strawberry Zak-Tarts. He took one for himself and set the other down on the dashboard of the van for his father.

"This is the last package of strawberry," he said, cheerfully, around a bite. "Which is fine by me. I prefer the cinnamon."


	2. Chapter 2

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 02: Bad Girl and Bad Boy

As soon as she was safely around the corner from the warehouse, Blank Bryce ducked into the alley and moved the garbage off of the Honda CBR 600 she had stolen a few weeks earlier. She had painted it white and pink.

"Come on, baby," she said as she got onto the bike. She patted it the way one might stroke a horse. "Mommy wants to visit a friend."

She had no intention of heading off to the Blank school that Orville, who was now well into his 80s, was still teaching. She learned enough from the two AIs at home. One of whom was supposedly a duplicate of her father, as she was taught to call Bryce Lynch.

Blank Bryce put her helmet on, then revved the engine on the Honda and sped off through the Fringes, enjoying the feel of the wind. After about an hour, she located the person she most wanted to see.

"Hello, Cad," she grinned, hopping off the bike and into Cadenet's arms. "Good to see you again."

"Yeah, you two, babe," Cadenet told her, touching his lips to hers in a kiss which grew more urgent with each moment.

Blank Bryce broke it off. "Ah ah ah! No more until you get me what I asked for."

"Well," Cadenet told her. "Finding lost nanites is nearly impossible. However, I did find something just as good. Got it out of the old Network 23 building."

The old Network 23 building. The place was now deserted, as all the networks had been. A major scandal had broken out after the fire at the Harrisburg Center had reported killed all the heads of Research and Development who had been sent there after a crisis at ACS, which had never reopened after the terrorist attack a few months before.

The parents of those teenagers had sued the networks, ignoring Edison's reports. They believed Edison was covering up to save his job.

Bryce's parents, as well as Jenny's and the others, had been very vocal in their disapproval, spreading dissent against networks throughout the community.

Steve Ellis, one of the British members of the Seventh Wave, seeing a new possibility of taking control, ran for office in the first non-TV-related election. With Peller being so notoriously controlled by Network 23, Ellis won in a landslide since nobody knew what his true affiliation was.

Weeks later, with the help of the ACS Memorial Group, he had abolished all local TV, brought back an old medium known as Radio, and reopened the old movie palace.

"Did anyone see you take it?" Blank Bryce asked.

Cadenet shook his head. "No." he told her, handing her what looked like an old walkie-talkie with a screen. "It was the only thing I could carry. Is it important?"

Blank Bryce grinned. "Important?" She laughed. "Only if you think the nanite controller is important. If both the nanite and controller are functioning, we can locate the nanite that my father's construct took those pictures with."

"You really think it'll make a difference to get TV back on air?" Cadenet asked her, hugging her from behind.

Blank Bryce looked across the Fringes toward the city, once gleaming, now as dirty as the Fringes themselves, at the Network 23 building and the Network 66 building just beyond it.

"The people were happier with it." She replied as she leaned back in his arms. She lit up a cigarette from a pack of Black Cats ("the only cigarette with Catnip" to quote the advertisers) and took a long drag before offering it to Cadenet, who took a drag himself before handing it back.

"Now," she said, wriggling seductively against him, "I believe I promised you a reward for your efforts?"

"Lead the way, my lady," Cadenet grinned, climbing onto the Honda with her and putting on the spare helmet.

"Hold on tight," she said, as they took off away from the Fringes.


	3. Chapter 3

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 03: The Third Musketeer

Blank Richard was awakened by the sound of a motorcycle zooming over his apartment. He threw on some clothes, grabbed his switchblade, and ran up the sub-basement ramp of the old Network 23 building.

"Stop!" he called out to the couple on the Honda. "This is private property!"

But they either didn't hear him or were just ignoring him.

Blank Bryce and Blank Cadenet ran up the stairs to the thirteenth floor and through the door that led to the corridor.

In the old Research and Development lab,they fell together onto the first Bryce Lynch's bed, both kissing as they hit the mattress.

Cadenet began to unzip Blank Bryce's vest, but she stopped him.

"Someone's in the hall," she warned, scrambling to her feet as the door opened again.

"You two are trespassing on my property," Blank Richard said.

"Does the name Bryce Lynch mean anything to you?" Cadenet asked.

"Bryce Lynch is dead," Blank Richard said. "My father told me about him when I was ten. Before I ran away from home."

"Bryce Lynch was my father," Blank Bryce told him. "And my namesake. Come on. Let's get out of this lab. If I can't get laid I at least want to have the cigarette."

She strolled out of the lab while Richard and Cadenet watched her in disbelief.

"Nice girl," Richard remarked.

In the car park, Richard and Cadenet caught up with Blank Bryce.

"What are you two up to anyhow?" Richard asked.

"Can't say," Blank Bryce told him.

"Look, I won't rat," Richard told them. "I have no love for Tyrant Ellis. Hypocrite shuts down TV because he claims it was too controlling. Then there's a mandatory Sunday Matinee about how great our new government is every week."

"Why don't we just skip out on the next one and meet back here? Surely we can miss one stupid movie." Cadenet said.

"You didn't hear the radio report about the busload of school kids and the driver who missed the last one because their bus broke down, did you?" Blank Bryce asked. "They were taken to the asylum and lobotomized. All of them."

"It's true," Richard said. He'd also heard the report. "Once you've missed a week of conditioning you're seen as a threat to national stability. They will hunt you down and do exactly what they did to those poor kids."

"If I can get the nanite program back online," Blank Bryce said, stepping out her cigarette, "There may be a way to stop all that."

"Easier said than done." Cadenet said.


	4. Chapter 4

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 3: Grounded

After she returned the pile of garbage to its place on top of her bike, Blank Bryce walked around the corner to the warehouse she lived in.

"Where's your homework?" Jenny asked as soon as she walked in.

"Forgot it,"

"You skipped school. Again," Jenny confronted the teenager. "Jesus, Bryce! Do you have any idea-..."

"Yeah," Blank Bryce said. "Because getting a really good education did wonders for my dad. Oh let's see…. where is he now? Dead! Killed at sixteen or seventeen. And for what? Being too bloody smart!"

"Don't you dare talk about Bryce that way! He was a good man and…"

"He was never a man!" Blank Bryce said. "That's the point I'm making. He didn't quite make it."

"You're wrong," Jenny replied. "So very wrong. In those days, sixteen was considered manhood in this city. And Bryce and I had attended college and been working for four years before the disaster."

"I'm just as smart as he was," Blank Bryce argued as she headed over to her bedroom. "You and father's constructs Bryce II and Max Headroom made sure of that."

"Yeah," Jenny muttered. "Until they were both wiped from the System." more loudly she added, "Don't forget day after tomorrow is the Matinee."

"How thrilling! Don't tell me the ending!" Blank Bryce's voice called back from behind the wall of crates.

"I'm going out," Jenny called. "I have to get supper for tonight. I'll be back in one hour. If I see Blank Orville I'll pick up your homework for you."

"Thanks, Mum!" Blank Bryce called out, sounding anything but thankful.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Blank Bryce came out of the bedroom. She sat down at the vu-phone and dialed Breughal's number.

"Breughal," the man's face on the screen said needlessly.

"I need to talk to Cadenet," Blank Bryce told him.

"Sorry, he can't come out to play," Breughal said. "He's grounded for the rest of the week. I've got him cleaning finger and toenails as a punishment. It'll make him think twice before skipping school again."

"Can I send her over to join him?" Jenny asked as she walked back in. "And no, this isn't entrapment. I just forgot my credit tubes."

"Always willing to get more help," Breughal smiled. "We'll talk more about it later," he hung up.

"Mom," Blank Bryce said. "Look, what I'm doing is just as important as school."

"What can be so important that… what are you holding?" Jenny reached out and took the nanite controller from Blank Bryce. "Where did … Did you go to your father's studio?"

"If I can…"

"You mustn't fool around with this stuff," Jenny warned. "This is the reason they killed your father."


	5. Chapter 5

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 5: Matinee

Sunday morning was a dreaded race for survival. That was the way it had been every Sunday for as long as Blank Bryce could recall. Whole families piled into buses, cars, or rickshaws. Usually the rickshaws were so piled up that nobody could sit down.

They came from all parts of the city. Some came from the Fringes. Others from the River. Starting off first thing in the morning to deal with the terrible traffic jam that led from all the roads of the city to the old theater.

The sidewalks were just as crowded as the roads; filled with pedestrians who made the weekly trip to the Matinee.

Nobody dared to stay home. To do so was to risk getting caught by the Sweep.

The Sweep took place every Sunday, two minutes before the Matinee. Government run scanners, installed in every building and nearly every vehicle, searched for any human beings they could find. Infrared sensors ran forwards, backwards, side to side, and diagonally; leaving no corner unsearched.

If a person was found by the Sweep, the building or vehicle he or she was in would be locked down and sirens would wail until the Metrocops came with the attending ambulance.

The result for these poor people was always the same. Immediate transportation to the asylum for lobotomy. How long it was before one faced surgery depended solely upon how many were taken in that Sunday morning. But usually a detainee could look forward to joining the growing ranks of the mentally maimed in the crowded quiet rooms in the adjoining detention building by the end of the day.

Blank Bryce edged closer and closer to the theater, snarling in irritation as she was jostled by the near-panicked crowd. She prayed that her mother was nearby, but did not stop to look around. Stopping would mean that she would not get into the theater. That she might be one of those who only heard the message of the Matinee and did not see it.

While only hearing was not as bad as missing it entirely. It did bring its own set of consequences.

They were hospitalized in the asylum for a week, given psychoactive drugs to make their minds more pliable, and then lectured for three hours every day. They were also forced into the quiet rooms for two hours each evening before being sent to their own rooms.

It wasn't uncommon for someone who was at the asylum for week-long conditioning to end up "accidentally" lobotomized.

So Blank Bryce walked as fast a she could, twisting and winding her way through the crowd until she squeezed through the doors and into the theater.

Once in the theater her eyes turned to a smile as she released a small butterfly, one fifth the size of a real one, and watched it fly unnoticed toward the screen.

An image of a man in his early sixties appeared on the screen.

"In this… the year 17… we give thanks to our Glorious Leader who paved our way to freedom."

The Matinee had begun.

"We give him thanks for freeing us from the tyranny of television."

"Thank You, Glorious Leader!" everyone shouted, including Blank Bryce, who put on a fake smile while feeling nauseous inside.

"We give him thanks, for showing us the way of neutrality."

Another chorus of "Thank You, Glorious Leader!"

"We give him…. "

The image of Ellis did a little electric jig and morphed into the image of an unpleasant-looking devil.

"... What about Love…? Its defective!"

The crowd shuddered in discomfort as the old song clip, known only to a few interrupted the Matinee.

Nobody had ever dared to interrupt the Matinee.

Within minutes, however, a large group, some rebellious, others willing to just repeat anything they were ordered, had taken up the cry "It's defective!" as the segment was repeated.

Government officials rushed to the projection unit. They scrambled desperately to restore the image of their beloved leader to its original form and return the Matinee to normality.

Finally one of them spotted the little butterfly sitting atop the machinery, fluttering its electric wings. He crushed it in his hands and pocketed the remains unseen.

"Just a dust bunny in the works, sir," he said as Ellis returned to normal on the screen and the Matinee resumed its weekly conditioning.


	6. Chapter 6

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 6:

"It was you, wasn't it?" Jenny said as soon as Blank Bryce walked into the warehouse. "Don't even think of lying to me. I know you sabotaged the Matinee."

Blank Bryce didn't even answer. She simply walked into her bedroom area and flopped down on the mattress.

Jenny followed her in. "Listen to me," she said angrily. "What were you thinking? Do you know what would've happened had you been caught?" She drew a line across her forehead.

"You think they'd get a little more creative than turning everyone into lobots," Blank Bryce remarked.

"They're government," Jenny snapped. "They don't know how to be creative. Now wash up for lunch."

"I'm not hungry," Blank Bryce told her. "Seeing Our Glorious Leader always makes me wanna puke. You know, I think he looked better with the horns."

"Just don't go around saying that in public," Jenny warned. "You don't know who might turn you in for dissention."

There was a knock on the door.

"Wait here," Jenny told her as she went to see who it was.

Blank Richard stood at the door, holding a single wood rose in his hand. "Is Blank Bryce here?"

Jenny eyed the flower suspiciously. "Who may I ask is calling?"

Blank Bryce hurried into the room. "Richard!"

"You know this man?" Jenny asked her.

"Yeah," Jenny admitted. "He lives over by Network 23."

"You went to Network 23," Jenny realized. "To your father's studio. Bryce, if you get caught there…"

"I know… I know…" Blank Bryce moved her finger across her forehead. "But don't you see? It doesn't matter. We may have intact brains. But we aren't allowed to use them. So we might as well be lobotomized."

"Don't say that," Blank Richard told her, handing her the flower. "Nothing lasts forever. This government will eventually fade as all others have. We just have to ride it out. And hope for something better to follow."


	7. Chapter 7

Blank Vendetta

Chapter 7: Daughter's Dilemma

Blank Bryce knew she couldn't go home. Now that she had done a runner, she was a fugitive. She could only hope that her mother hadn't got into trouble.

There was no going home to find out. No way she could ever see her mom again now until she got ousted the Glorious Leader from his seat of power. She rode her bike until she got to Network 23.

"Richard! Richard!" she called to him.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I need you to help me get Network 23 up and running again," she said.

"Even if we did, so what?" Richard said. "Who's going to see it? All the sets were confiscated in the raid when our Glorious Leader took over."

"Never mind that. It'll be seen. Just help me."

"Anyhow, shouldn't you be going after your mom?"

"Mom?"

Richard looked at her. "Bryce,"

"Blank Bryce," she corrected him. "Bryce was the original. My father."

"Whatever…" Richard shook it off. "Blank Bryce, your mother has been arrested. She'll be lobotomized soon."

"I've got time. They'll want to question her first."

"Are you mad? This is your mother. Look. just tell me what I need to do. I'll get Network 23 up and make the broadcast. You rescue your mother."

"You don't know what to look for. I was trained for this mission as a child before the AIs were destroyed. Go get Cadenet. He's Breughal's son. Gray van. Body Bank freelancers."

"What if Breughal won't let Cadenet come?" Richard asked her.

Blank Bryce considered. "Tell him if this works out he's going to have one heck of a celebrity corpse to cash in at the body banks. And tell Mom I'm sorry I can't be there to greet her, but if she wants to be rescued permanently, I need to do this here."

Blank Richard pulled her into a powerful kiss.

"Take the bike," she told him, catching her breath.

As soon as he was gone, she headed into the old building and began to look for the power generator.

"I hope to God I can get that generator working," she muttered. Then she realized where there might be one.

Racing to her father's old studio, she searched until she found a likely device.

Setting it up, she found what seemed to be the proper switch. "Here's hoping," she said.

To her astonishment, a screen lit up on the device and a familiar face appeared.

"Well, it's about-bout-bout time!" Max said, crossly. "Doesn't anyone watch tel-tel-television anymore?"

"No, Max," Blank Bryce told him. "We're not allowed to."

"Not allowed to watch TV?" Max asked, shocked. "What do you do to occupy your time? Hey, Edison! Bryce!"

"Pray we don't get lobotomized," Blank Bryce told him. She realized he was a copy of Max that had been stored before the Glorious Leader had come to power. Before her father had died.

"Max," she told him, "Bryce is dead. He died seventeen years ago, trying to prevent a takeover by a dangerous terrorist group."

Max bowed his head in sorrow. "Excuse me, I need to be alone," he said, vanishing from the screen.

"Great timing," Blank Bryce muttered to herself, wondering how long computer-generated people took to grieve.


End file.
